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applegrove

(118,008 posts)
Mon Dec 2, 2019, 08:42 PM Dec 2019

America's Red State Death Trip Why does falling life expectancy track political orientation?

America’s Red State Death Trip

Why does falling life expectancy track political orientation?

By Paul Krugman, Opinion Columnist at the NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/02/opinion/life-expectancy-united-states.html#click=https://t.co/J9s9OiOgIj

"SNIP......

“E pluribus unum” — out of many, one — is one of America’s traditional mottos. And you might think it would be reflected in reality. We aren’t, after all, just united politically. We share a common language; the unrestricted movement of goods, services and people is guaranteed by the Constitution. Shouldn’t this lead to convergence in the way we live and think?

In fact, however, the past few decades have been marked by growing divergence among regions along several dimensions, all closely correlated. In particular, the political divide is also, increasingly, an economic divide. As The Times’s Tom Edsall put it in a recent article, “red and blue voters live in different economies.”

What Edsall didn’t point out is that red and blue voters don’t just live differently, they also die differently.

About the living part: Democratic-leaning areas used to look similar to Republican-leaning areas in terms of productivity, income and education. But they have been rapidly diverging, with blue areas getting more productive, richer and better educated. In the close presidential election of 2000, counties that supported Al Gore over George W. Bush accounted for only a little over half the nation’s economic output. In the close election of 2016, counties that supported Hillary Clinton accounted for 64 percent of output, almost twice the share of Trump country.

......SNIP"

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America's Red State Death Trip Why does falling life expectancy track political orientation? (Original Post) applegrove Dec 2019 OP
because you have to be on drugs to vote for thugs. mopinko Dec 2019 #1
Just voting GOP makes people contenders for a Darwin Award. The Velveteen Ocelot Dec 2019 #2
lets look at what they think is living well and should be emulated..... getagrip_already Dec 2019 #3
Thinking you deserve to be married when you hate feminists and find applegrove Dec 2019 #7
Veggies are for sissy little liberals. Maru Kitteh Dec 2019 #15
GOPers love pollution for profit Hermit-The-Prog Dec 2019 #19
Is that why many of Trump's most hardcore voters worship the apocalypse? Initech Dec 2019 #4
White entitlement. Aristus Dec 2019 #5
Dead-Enders Ponietz Dec 2019 #6
let's get the Red out Hermit-The-Prog Dec 2019 #8
Hate shortens your life ThoughtCriminal Dec 2019 #9
And let's not forget good ol' Christian Fundamentalist Whackdoodle . . . hatrack Dec 2019 #10
People used to move to where the jobs/work are. BigmanPigman Dec 2019 #11
Bootstraps motherfuckers! Boot-straps!! Lucky Luciano Dec 2019 #12
It's as simple as inequality caraher Dec 2019 #13
And when people suffer from financial anxiety they don't vote using reason. applegrove Dec 2019 #14
Dr. Paul Krugman, Nobelist, is my favorite economist ever... Hekate Dec 2019 #16
I know it! applegrove Dec 2019 #17
Let's treat them like a failing LLC of a major corporation. roamer65 Dec 2019 #18
K&R smirkymonkey Dec 2019 #20
Would rather die than take that damn socialized medicine... Wounded Bear Dec 2019 #21

mopinko

(69,803 posts)
1. because you have to be on drugs to vote for thugs.
Mon Dec 2, 2019, 08:43 PM
Dec 2019

honestly, i swear to you, a venn diagram of the opioid crisis and trump voters, it would be scary. there is a thing there.

getagrip_already

(14,226 posts)
3. lets look at what they think is living well and should be emulated.....
Mon Dec 2, 2019, 08:53 PM
Dec 2019

Drinking to excess nightly, if not daily. Check.

Eating fast food, greasy/fatty/sugary foods to the exclusion of anything else. Check.

Not exercising. Check.

Smoking. Check.

Avoiding vaccines and really anything to do with doctors or medicine. Check.

Cleaning guns while drunk. Check. Click, BANG.

Plus many, many, other unhealthy and unproductive pursuits.

Nope, no reasons I can think of.........

Maru Kitteh

(28,303 posts)
15. Veggies are for sissy little liberals.
Tue Dec 3, 2019, 12:04 AM
Dec 2019

Same goes for:

seatbelts
dental hygiene
reading the instructions
reading
regular medical care
helmets
water

Just a few things that come to mind. There are more, to be sure.

Aristus

(66,075 posts)
5. White entitlement.
Mon Dec 2, 2019, 08:56 PM
Dec 2019

The idea that because one is born white, one should have all of the features of the American dream automatically bestowed upon oneself. No need for effort, vision, imagination, education, cooperation, etc.

So red state white people forego education, planning for the future, striving for excellence, and so on.

And of course, no one is going to tell these people what they can and can't do. So they will indulge every impulse that strikes them: smoking, drinking, meth, driving too fast, gambling too much, challenging bosses or co-workers, not following up on opportunities, etc. And of course, blaming anyone but themselves if their lives don't turn out they way they dreamed, especially if their hatred is easily directed to minorities. Remember how the red-staters were convinced that Barack Obama was a fraud, because they preferred to believe he was handed everything he had, rather than admit he had worked hard for all of it? To do so would be to admit that their failures were due to their own inaction, their own inertia, their own ignorance.

Their resolute refusal to educate themselves is leading not only decreased quality of life, but decreased life expectancy.

ThoughtCriminal

(14,009 posts)
9. Hate shortens your life
Mon Dec 2, 2019, 11:11 PM
Dec 2019

The F.U. attitude towards healthy eating and the environment, underfunded education, low wages with income inequality. The lack of affordable health care leads to abuse of pain-killers as a substitute for medical treatment.

All these things but also the attachment to a non-stop fear, outrage, and hate propaganda blitz. Bound to take a few years off life expectancy when you are convinced that a gang of ANTIFA ninjas are lurking around every corner waiting for the next MAGA-hat.

hatrack

(59,439 posts)
10. And let's not forget good ol' Christian Fundamentalist Whackdoodle . . .
Mon Dec 2, 2019, 11:21 PM
Dec 2019

Abandoning rational thought and skepticism - that's just the opener.

You'll then be parboiled in Original See-Yun so that you feel like shit just for existing, and don't even go there with sex, or if you're gay.

But don't worry! Getting WWIII up on the starting blocks is when the magic really begins !!

When Pro Wrestling Jesus turns on the Holy Hoover and sucks the Saved (that's YOU, Bubba!) up to the clouds, then everybody who ever laughed at you, every girl who ever turned you down, every smartass who left town and got ahead, every teacher who didn't give you the grade you "deserved" - you'll be in Heaven and you'll get to watch them suffer - and won't that be wonderful?!?!?

Talk about a death cult . . .

caraher

(6,276 posts)
13. It's as simple as inequality
Mon Dec 2, 2019, 11:56 PM
Dec 2019

Red states lack programs to mitigate the effects of growing economic inequality. Blue states try more, however imperfectly.

The Spirit Level is getting old but there are too many associations that are too well documented to ignore. Pretty much every quantifiable measure of well-being in societies that are not desperately poor correlates with higher equality.

applegrove

(118,008 posts)
14. And when people suffer from financial anxiety they don't vote using reason.
Mon Dec 2, 2019, 11:59 PM
Dec 2019

They vote intuitively. So they vote republican and the inequality gets even bigger.

roamer65

(36,739 posts)
18. Let's treat them like a failing LLC of a major corporation.
Tue Dec 3, 2019, 12:32 AM
Dec 2019

Pile all of the government debt onto them and kick them out of the Union.

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